Back in the Day
by Shekiah Rosay
Summary: Joey has to make a short stay at the Domino City orphanage, and who does he run into but our favorite CEO to be?  The two of them bond over mutual sorrows before their friendship inevitably has to end, but only after it changes them both permanently.
1. The Terrors of Dormitory C

Another stab at a Seto and Joey story. Again, probably not romance, and definitely not canon, but you guys can deal. It's a friendship story about them meeting as children, and how that would have been different. Lots of Mokie in this chapter too – he hasn't made enough appearances in my latest fics. I love that kid! I don't own Yu-Gi-Oh, by the way. That would be pretty cool though.

* * *

"Had enough yet, Takahashi?" one of the older boys jeered. Seto watched from the sidelines, struggling against the boy that restrained him. There were a few more boys standing a few feet away, slapping his little brother around. Apparently, the five-year-old had been mouthing off at them earlier at dinner when they teased him about the hole in his sleeve. And they hadn't taken it very well.

"Then come over here, why don'tcha?" one of the bullies jeered. "Help the little guy out. What kind of brother are you?"

Seto's doubled his efforts, but still no luck. The boy holding him back was a head taller than him, and perhaps double his shoulder width. Seto hated this. More than anything. Why couldn't it be him?

"I dunno, Tenshi," the boy holding Seto responded since he had not. "He'd do better just to teach the kid how to act around his betters."

"Seto, don't do it," Mokuba pleaded, as one of the boys shoved him hard enough that he lost his balance. "Don't do it, please… you can just have my lunch tomorrow! No, _Seto, make them stop!"_

"Leave him alone!" Seto shouted for what seemed like the hundredth time, only succeeding in doubling the amusement of their assailants. As they were laughing amongst themselves, another boy about Seto's age walked out of the mess hall. He watched for a second what was going on, and his eyes narrowed.

"Leave them alone, jerks," he said coldly. The boys stopped their abuse of Mokuba long enough to turn around and gaze at him in bemused surprise.

"Who the hell do you think you are?" the largest of the three boys demanded.

"Somebody telling you to pick on somebody your own size," the new boy insisted. The older boys looked around at one another, snickering.

"For your information, Blondie, everybody around here _our_ size knows not to mess with us," one of them said, crossing his arms.

Instead of responding, the newcomer simply swung back and punched him firmly and neatly in the nose. There was a second of suspended disbelief before a thousand events occurred at what seemed like the exact same time.

The boy holding Seto slackened his hold on him in his surprise, and Seto leapt away from him to aid the new boy who was now facing all of Mokuba's attackers, sans the one whose nose was now presumably broken. Seto noticed the fear in the eyes of this strange newcomer, and felt a surge of pity.

"We can't possibly fight them all!" he exclaimed amidst the confusion. "Come on!"

Grabbing Mokuba's hand, Seto beckoned for the blonde boy to follow them. As the dust cleared, one of the attackers looked up.

"Hey – there they go! Don't let them get away!"

The source of the voice could not be determined, as Seto, Mokuba, and the new boy were all running as hard and fast as they could up the main stairwell, through the double doors, and down the hallway of Dormitory C.

"Quick! In here!" Seto exclaimed, pulling open the doorway to a janitor's closet. Once they were all inside, he slammed the door and pushed a large collection of buckets and mops behind the door and placed some duct tape over the knob so that it wouldn't turn from the outside.

Panting for breath, the boys sat down on overturned buckets and, in Mokuba's case, on the rim of the sink.

"Wow…" he breathed. "That was close."

"Mmmhmm," Seto responded thoughtfully. For the first time, he got a good look at their companion. He seemed to be about Seto's age, but had a different look about him. His expression was a little harder, and the sleeves of his t-shirt were cut off to reveal sunburned, strong-looking arms. All in all, he looked old beyond his years. The only traits that betrayed his age were his mud-stained jeans and freckled nose.

"You're brave," Mokuba whispered to the boy, who laughed. Seto put a finger over his mouth to remind them that they still needed to be quiet, in case the boys decided to check their hallway. No later than he had done this, voices were heard in the corridor.

"Have you checked under all the beds?" one of the voices inquired. His partner sighed.

"Yes, at least twice! They're not in the building; that's all there is to it!"

"Wait."

Now footsteps were heard, and they seemed to be getting closer. The three boys in the broom closet all held their breath as they seemed to come to a stop right outside the door.

"Do you think they could be in here, maybe?"

"I guess so. Try the door."

Seto felt his stomach flip over as the boy rattled the doorknob. He willed the tape to hold out, and after what seemed like hours, the knob stopped.

"Nah," the boy outside said disappointedly. "It's locked."

"Well _shit_," his companion snapped. "I guess you could have been right about them leaving the building. Let's check the back playground."

"Okay."

A few seconds later, the boys in the closet heard an outside door slam shut, and they all exhaled in enormous sighs of relief.

"I guess the coast is clear, then," Seto observed, getting up. "We can spend the rest of the evening in our room so that we don't run into them again. It's a safe distance."

"But Seto," Mokuba pointed out. "What about our new friend?"

Seto gave the boy an appraising look, and finally nodded.

"He can stay too," he said decisively. Mokuba cheered. Together, the three of them walked the short distance through the building to the room that Seto and Mokuba shared with three other boys Seto's age. Once they arrived, they sat down on the bottom bunk that they shared. The other boy sat down on the floor beside them.

"Thank you for letting me stay with you guys. I'm Joey, by the way," he said, extending a hand to Seto, who took it.

"I'm Seto. This is my younger brother, Mokuba."

"Yeah, I figured," Joey smiled.

"Thank you for saving us," Mokuba said, his eyes wide and serious. Joey shook his head.

"You're a nice kid, but I just shook 'em up a little. Your brother's quick thinking is what got us out of that alive."

Seto shrugged modestly. Joey looked at him, then Mokuba, and then back to him.

"You know, you guys don't really look too much alike," he commented. Mokuba nodded.

"People tell us that a lot."

"It's okay," Joey shrugged. "People say that about me and my sister too."

"You have a sister?" Seto inquired, his interest piqued.

"Yeah. She's a little younger than me – probably just a little older than your brother. You know, that's really the reason I stopped and helped you guys out. If somebody pushed her around, and I couldn't help her, I hope some other guy would come and help her out, too."

Seto nodded, smiling in a way as though Joey's feelings reflected his own in a very reassuring way. Seto immediately assumed that his sister was at a different orphanage, seeing how this facility was all-boys. Honestly, he thought for the first time how lucky he was that he and Mokuba were both boys and could stay together.

"Is your sister at the orphanage across town?" Mokuba asked, apparently having assumed the same thing. Joey shook his head.

"She's with our mom."

Seto gave Joey a look of confusion.

"If your mom is still alive, why are _you_ here?"

Joey sighed.

"It's really complicated," he replied. "They don't know who I should live with, my mom or my dad. They're going to do a custody battle in a week or so, but between now and then I have to stay here."

"Oh," Mokuba said, looking as though he still didn't completely understand. "But that means you'll get to see your mom again soon, right? You'll get to go live with her?"

"It's not that simple, Mokuba," Seto interjected, his expression a little grim. Joey nodded.

"They really doubt that she's going to win," he said. "She'll probably just get to keep my sister."

"Oh. Will you get to see her?" Mokuba asked. Joey shook his head, his eyes tearing up a little bit.

"Probably not, kid."

* * *

So I'm going to continue this; and it will probably end up being about three chapters, each about this long. We'll see. I mean, that is if you guys like it. And the only way I'll know is if you review! 


	2. Blurry Stars

So basically I've had NO EXTRA TIME since August… But I guess there are some good things about a cold – I'm back. :) But anyway, I've gotten more interest in this one than I expected, so it's going to continue! Thanks for the feedback, guys, keep it up :D

* * *

The boys settled into the dorm, having skipped supper in favor of a couple of boxes of Pocky that Seto had under his bed left over from an after-school trip to the convenience store a week or so before. They weren't much, but they certainly beat cafeteria fare – and the potential of meeting up with the nasty characters that they had so narrowly escaped earlier.

Mokuba was the first to fall asleep. Seto had told him that he could have the bed and had been sitting with Joey on his orphanage-issue sleeping bag.

The boys had been talking all evening. Turned out that Joey and Seto were both going to turn nine very soon – Seto that October and Joey in January. Joey was born in just outside of Yokohama – at that point, his mom had worked for a software company. That was back before his dad had started gambling and the marriage got bad.

Once they realized that Mokuba had fallen asleep, the boys were silent for a few minutes. Not surprisingly, their thought patterns were fairly similar. They were both wondering why. Why everything was the way that it was. Why they couldn't have mothers that made cookies and dads that made tree-forts.

Finally, the silence became too suppressive to prolong.

"Sometimes I go up to the roof… do you want to go with me?" Seto asked. Joey gave him a strange look.

"The roof?"

"Yeah, it's really easy to get up there," Seto whispered. "And it's all quiet and you can see the stars. I like to go up there to think."

"Okay," Joey replied. "Why not?"

With this, Seto got up and beckoned for Joey to follow him. He walked over to the door that went outside, and after looking each way to make sure the coast was clear, he ran to the side of the building beside a large dogwood tree.

"Are you a good tree-climber?" Seto asked Joey, placing a hand on the lowest branch.

"I'm okay," Joey replied, giving Seto a leg up. This seemed to surprised Seto.

"Thanks," he said, giving Joey a rare smile. Joey shrugged, wondering why it was such a big deal.

When Seto had crossed over to the roof, Joey began to climb up too. He was fairly proficient, always remembering to grab the next branch up with his hand before moving his feet. However, when he placed a foot on the storm gutter of the building to jump over, one of his sneakers slipped on a perpetually untied shoelace. Hardly even thinking, Seto extended his hand and helped Joey get his balance back.

"Thanks, man," Joey said, dusting himself off and lying down beside Seto.

"No problem."

Joey took a deep breath and let it out slowly.

"There _are_ a lot of stars up here, aren't there?"

"Yeah. A lot more than in Tokyo, where we lived before we came here."

Joey nodded thoughtfully.

"But I bet you miss Tokyo anyway, don't you?" he asked quietly. Seto turned and gave him a strange look.

"What do you mean?"

"You know, Tokyo. Your old house."

"I guess I do," Seto admitted finally. Without hardly realizing it, he continued to talk. "I miss the overgrown garden… my dad liked to garden, but he never was that good at it. He couldn't stand to kill the weeds that had flowers, and they'd eventually take over. I miss coming home from school and trying to figure out what my mom was going to cook for supper that night. Every Thursday she'd cook my favorite, because one time I told her that I hated Thursdays and she wanted to make me like them…"

Seto's voice had broken and trailed off, and Joey turned to him to notice that tears were running down his face. He sat up in surprise at this expression of emotion. Seto shook his head, attempting to wipe away the tears, but Joey only gave him a sad, understanding smile in return and put an arm around his shoulders.

"I remember my old house, too," Joey said as Seto's silent tears continued. "I would always meet my sister at the flag pole after school and we'd walk home together. We would go outside in the backyard and make mud pies until my mom made us come in and do our homework…"

Before Joey knew it, he too was crying. The boys just sat in silence for probably a half an hour, just crying and hardly even realizing it. The stars were blurry, that's all they noticed was different. It was as though they cried on the inside all the time and somehow, by being together, they could let it come outside too. There wasn't any need to be strong for anybody else. They could just cry.

Finally, Joey separated and wiped his eyes.

"I have a Ramune in my backpack. Do you want to share it?"

"Yeah," Seto replied. "I am really thirsty."

"Okay. Hold on while I open it."

He popped out the glass marble that sealed the drink and took a sip before passing it to Seto who did likewise before putting it down between them.

"You like the bubblegum flavor?" Seto inquired, swallowing the over-sweet liquid rather forcedly. Joey laughed a little, realizing how weird it sounded.

"Not too much. I really like the pineapple, but bubblegum was the only one that they had."

"Oh."

The silence resumed for a few minutes before Joey suddenly turned to Seto.

"What kind of family do you want to adopt you?" he inquired. Seto raised an eyebrow, but realizing that Joey was serious, thought for a moment or two.

"I want a place where I will never have to worry about losing my family or being separated from my brother," Seto said slowly and with increasing sureness. Joey's eyes widened happily.

"We should wait until I go back to whatever parent I go back to," Joey explained with excitement, "and then, I'll get them to adopt you and Mokuba. After that, we'll run away!"

"Run away?" Seto demanded, his eyes widening.

"Yeah! We can live in the woods like people did back in the day! We don't have to eat anything but strawberry Pocky and pineapple Ramune. My sister will come too, and we can all look up and see stars like this _every_ night!"

Seto looked at Joey as though he was crazy, but somehow a part of him needed to believe that this was possible. When words came out, they defied every bit of reason within him.

"Do you think we really could?"

"Sure!" Joey exclaimed. "We will! You just have to be careful not to get adopted between now and then, okay? It's just a week or two from now, and I'll know which parent gets me, and we'll come and pick up you and Mokuba."

"Okay," Seto said, now more than a part of the scheme. "I'll tell Mokuba when he wakes up. For now, let's go back down and get some sleep too."


End file.
